because honestly, Taiwan’s market is small, market is extremely polarized, absolutely zero diversity in Taiwan. You are Taiwanese, or you are someone else. There is no room for anything else. Maybe there is more diversity in China even if the government is oppressive or whatever (as long as I stay out of their way and don’t go SJW I would be fine, or so I’m told).
And there is no space in Taiwan, it’s crowded, everything happens at such a quick pace, everything is rushed.
And people would be willing to pay a million US for a hole in the wall.
China, because they make almost everything Americans use, means almost everything people here post in the “where can I find” forum will be found in China. In fact a search through Taobao and you find everything you could easily find in America.
I don’t even know how is China actively exterminating minorities that actually increased in population compared to before. Usually the goal of a genocide or ethnic cleansing is to reduce them. As far as I know, as long as you go to China, mind your own business, you will be fine. This is from both brainwashed Chinese people, and also people who got into trouble in China because they decided to do things China doesn’t want you to do (go SJW or run house churches).
I buy almost everything from Taobao because I don’t have to argue with Taiwanese shopkeepers who keeps saying “meiyo or meibanfa” and have no patience, and Taobao has exactly what I am looking for.
So I don’t know. Taiwan is just looking more and more stagnant every day.
One nice thing about buying, if you plan to be in one place for many years, is effective “rent stabilization.” Aside from property taxes, your monthly payments stay about the same (or go down if you refinance into a lower rate). Should you need to, you can tap into the equity through a loan at relatively reasonable interest rates (at least in the US). You have costs for maintenance and upgrades, but at the end of the mortgage most of your monthly costs drop away and you are sitting on a nice chunk of equity.
You’re in the US? I don’t think the concept of “rent stabilization” is applicable to the market here. There’s no reason for locals to spend $20 million on a crapper of place in Taipei because they’re worried that their $15,000/month rent might increase to $20,000/month in 5 years.
Buying a place in the SF Bay Area circa early 2010s, on the other hand…
Yes, in the US. I know rent increases in Taiwan have not been incredible. We did think about buying when we lived in Taipei in the late 1990s, but could get a lot more for the monthly payment by renting. And we did not know how much longer we would be in Taiwan. If we are able to get back to Taipei, we will probably keep our house here in Southern California and rent in Tapei. Yeah, wish we could have bought a place in the SF Bay area back in the day.
I wasn’t really aiming this reply at you specifically. It was because when I asked the banks i personally deal with about mortgages, half told me impossible for foreigners without even looking into it when I know it is possible, and the other ones said couldn’t you use your wife’s name … said sorry no wife and they were all teeth sucking about the difficulty… I was only kicking the tires then to see what was possible and everyone was being evasive
Now had I been a more serious buyer I would definitely pushed it. They always like having a wife or gf to cosign and I’m getting quite pissed off with that attitude.
As far as the insisting to have things in my name too, that’s a personal pet peeve of mine living here. I’d say the majority of foreigners don’t care as long as they get the item they want (mortgage, phone contact) but in my case I’m not the most trusting person to have everything in someone else’s name. Again it’s a personal bugaboo that doesn’t bother 99% of other people.
HK was a peaceful handover.
No way Taiwan would go quietly.
This is not to say that I believe the commies would abolish property rights, but you just can’t compare HK and Taiwan . There would be some kind of war in Taiwan, if it comes to them trying to take the place over. They would have to turn this place into a police state to hold it .
Yeah. We rented a decent 50ish ping place on the top floor of a walk-up in Da’an for $30000 back in 1999. No idea how much it would be now. But we couldn’t have afforded to buy it back then.
The average rent in Taipei is at least $1,000 per ping, so $50,000. But a walk-up should be cheaper, though definitely not $30,000. As for buying, the going rate in Da’an for old walk-ups is at least $600,000 per ping.
I remember back in 2002/3 checking out real estate prices in Tienmu and thinking it was crazy to ask for 14- 16 million NT for a bang average apartment, especially as prices in Hong Shulin /Danshui were half that…
Those same apartments are now double in both areas. If only…
I don’t think anyone investing in property, in Taipei- especially Taipei city, in the last 40/50 years could have failed to make a tidy profit. Of course that’s not to say the trajectory will hold up but it is the buyers who have been clear winners (from an investment point of view)
That’s all pretty obvious stuff looking backwards.
That doesn’t help us with the future looking case so much especially as the population pyramid inverts.
Nevertheless I doubt property will ever be cheap here.
Also tienmu prices actually dropped and places such as linkou have seen price drops. We were checking the prices recently and many had dropped in price contrary to the media spin.